Because Fun Keeps You Young!

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fauna

This February had loads of paperwork, as usual. Fortunately for me, Valentine’s Day came right after I finished my taxes. Time for yummy loot!

We usually buy Valentine’s Day candy only after it has gone on sale, so, perfect timing.

What differs from previous years is that I got my tax stuff figured out by mid-month. I’m very pleased by the achievement and have made copious notes to make the process as fast in the future. (I hope!)

Weatherwise, this February was oddly low-snow. We did get a number snowfalls, but they were relatively few and far between. In the very beginning of the month, we had a load of light, fluffy snow, with sun and high winds the following day. The powdery snow fell off the trees in huge, gorgeous, transparent curtains, almost like mist.

My photo doesn’t do it justice at all; it was magnificent!

Towards the mid-month, we had another layer. Afterwards, in the wee hours of the morning, the neighborhood turkeys apparently had places to be:

So many different paths all over! There’s also at least one set of fox tracks there. And speaking of foxes, one Saturday, a bright and glorious morning, one came round to check around the bird feeder in our neighbor’s back yard.

It seems that spring is early this year – and you get no complaints from me. Although I could do with less pollen this early in the year…

Sadly, the latter half of February brought two deaths in Husband’s extended family, which cast a pall on otherwise sunny days.

One recent morning when I was preparing to go upstairs to my workroom, I heard a rustling, scraping sound that was quite loud and really close. I lifted my head to see a young male turkey standing on our back deck rail:

He stood there for a few minutes and then re-joined the little flock down on the ground. We’ve been seeing the three of them around quite a bit this winter.

My guess is he was looking for birdseed. Our next-door neighbor has a birdfeeder that the wild turkeys often visit. He doesn’t have any on his deck, though; perhaps this young fella was just overly curious.

The other day I was looking for something completely different in my Flickr albums, when I ran across this image from last year:

It still makes me smile: I just happened to look out the window at a good time to see a wild rabbit taking a sandbath in a shallow depression. The depressions were dug into our yard by a turtle, we think; we see them digging test holes some years. Other years they must be laying eggs somewhere else.

I guess the sand felt cooler to the rabbit than the grass? What an incredible coincidence nonetheless; I’ve never seen a wild bunny do that. It must’ve felt comfortable to have stretched out its back leg(s) like that. Cute attack! 🙂

Jaana offers no tutorial, but there’s a second photo in her blog post that shows the fox sleeves spread out for additional details (NB. in Finnish only, and you have to scroll quite far to get to the foxes).

Is it finally time for me to dig up my crochet hook? (It’s probably been **cough cough** 25 years or more at this point… Actually, only(!) five or so. 🙂 Anyway.) I have some greyish blue yarn stashed away that might make a great silver fox variant.

Note: I wasn’t paid or perked to mention this; just passing along a good thing.